


i could even learn how to love like you.

by atrocities_galore



Category: Devilman (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Asuka Ryo-centric, Canon Rewrite, Everyone is Dead, Falling In Love, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Regret, Unrequited Love, homo if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29597568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrocities_galore/pseuds/atrocities_galore
Summary: ryo knew what it was to be everything. to be the beginning and end of it all, to be risen and fallen from the best place imaginable. he knew hatred and his own faux perception of love, he knew friendship and his enemies.he knew death and life and greeted them with light kisses and open arms, because they knew of him too.
Relationships: Asuka Ryo | Satan & Fudo Akira
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	i could even learn how to love like you.

**Author's Note:**

> just did this for a few friends after we watched, basically just a retelling of the last scene from the ending :') major death warning sigh

“you can see the stars clearly.”

his words were almost like a shout in the deafening silence of the planet collapsing. sure, the sounds of magma and crumbling earth were like a background melody to their sinful dance, but it was nothing compared to the high hum of ryo’s voice. angelic, malicious intent hidden behind bright wings and bright teeth.

he was right as well. gazing emptily up to the stars, they could see orion and pollux and hercules and aquarius; all hung up in the blue and purple blanket of darkness. faintly, ryo remembers whizzing by them on his fall from heaven, from god. he remembers the itch of space, and the cold of saturn’s rings. his tucked wings protected him from the heat of it all, as if it mattered at that point. even if he had burnt alive by the brightest star in the galaxy, the blond would’ve felt more alive than he did up above.

akira was warm. akira had been the warmest star ryo had met in his life. too hot for his cold, pale self. they always shared blankets and lights and everything between one another, but even the most heated sun in the solar system couldn’t compare to the warmth of a hug from akira. but even then, he didn’t miss it. he missed the chaos between them.

craning his neck back, ryo passed a sigh between his parted lips. “it’s because all the humans are gone.” a slight smile stuck his mouth, like a cheshire cat who just watched alice fall into the hole for a final time.

and alice, representing the human race with her red and white mischief, was gone. her buildings, her life, her everything; shattered into millions and millions of bits. now her legacy was red and yellow creatures, thousands of gnashing teeth and slimy limbs congratulating her demise from every corner of the planet. they’d done what they’d wanted, and the price was nothing. perhaps a few good men here and there, but now there is no law. no gender, no equity, no pain, no anything. there was blood and there was hysteria, and that’s all they held.

alice touched the word of god and realized that there was not a single thing left in this world to care for, to be for, to exist for. so she allowed herself to be sacrificed for the monsters below, for their home to be shared, to be shoved out of. what a lovely girl, alice. it reminded the lord above of miki.

“akira,” he chuckled, low and teasing, “there’s no rabbit in the sky.”

it’s as if he could feel the rain on his cheeks.

the sunshine in his bones, the scent of a wet cat soon to rot. the feeling of tears and droplets of dew against his clothes. do not be mistaken, because ryo can feel. ryo can feel more than any human could on the sorrowful earth.

he knew what it was to be everything. to be the beginning and end of it all, to be risen and fallen from the best place imaginable. he knew hatred and his own faux perception of love, he knew friendship and his enemies. he knew death and life and greeted them with light kisses and open arms, because they knew of him too. 

he knew sadness. he knew joy. he knew the feeling of warm fingertips pressed to his jaw, of black hair nestled against his shoulder and the solid laughter of a best friend. he understood that, he could comprehend it. something malleable, something to mold into his own creation. something so divine that even god himself would be envious of satan’s best project since his downfall.

“akira,” he breathed out.

ryo shifted to lean onto his shoulder, glancing over at the grey skinned boy next to him. his most divine creation. he’d bragged about him to everyone he could trust, too. ‘that devilman boy, that’s my friend. i’m the one who’s gotten him this far, eh? look at what we’ve done.’ like akira was a proud trophy that he was to show off any chance he got, but the other was more than that. ryo was aware, and he treated him like one. not as a human, no, because akira was too angelic to be a human. probably could’ve been an angel too, if the blond hadn’t dipped him into the life of sin and wrath.

he could imagine it right then and there. the black haired boy painted up with a glowing halo, big and fluffy wings that could hold and protect and cherish. glints of feeling in his eyes, with ambrose hues of what it took to be more than perfect. he wouldn’t change much either; same old akira, with his grin of a canine, and bark as equal as his bite. the blond always knew that he had a heart of pure gold, dripping and overflowing with too much care to share with the rest of the world. he only wondered how much he could give before it began to hurt.

a laugh, cobalt irises falling upon the lanky boy. “why am i the only one talking?” he smiles, because it’s never like akira to mince words, much less forget them altogether while they spoke to one another. perhaps he finally learned when to keep his mouth shut. he always knew how to talk himself into trouble accidentally.

though, it was hard to talk when he wasn’t breathing.

ryo’s gaze trailed downwards, only to meet the dirt beneath akira’s corpse. when had his heart stopped beating? when had his blood stopped flowing, when had his breathing ceased to nothing? ryo was sure he left him alive, it was possible to survive without the bottom half of your body in some cases. he did that, he knew it, he was sure that there was a way. and in his slow turning, yet frantic memory, he could remember the slicing of yellow blood against the pale surface of the moon. the agonized scream that erupted from his best friend, the quietness that fell over them afterwards. despite everything happening, no matter what the blond did, that scream and that vision flashed behind his eyelids and brain with each passing moment, reminding him of what he did.

he’s calling akira’s name, pressing his fingertips to the colder’s jaw like he used to when they were younger, but he was met with no opposition. no butting heads, no jeering chuckles or polite grimaces. just the overlooking stars and them.

ryo hears himself calling out the other’s name, hears his voice breaking and cracking but he can’t do anything about it. it’s not him, only ryo knows the real him. the real him has known that he felt this all along, whatever it is. from the moment his smiles glowed more around akira, when his hands shook from excitement from something they were doing together, when their laughs synced and their breathing matched one another’s. it was so hard to place the warm, bubbling feeling inside his sternum when he heard his best friend call him a smartass for something he’d done, or the underlying cold feeling of guilt when he saw tears running down his pretty face. he felt the need to wipe them away, to console his dear boy even if he didn’t understand how to. ryo wanted to learn, he wanted to understand something that his poor brain couldn’t wrap his head around.

his heart longed for that feeling of want again. as he muttered, “akira,” for another dozen times.

“akira,” he praised god for the first time in his life, “akira. right now, i’m feeling something.” the last one on earth curled himself closer to the corpse, feeling a stinging in his eyes. it couldn’t be, his brain hurt, he felt too much, too little. 

“what is this? tell me, what is this, akira? feel what i’m feeling right now,” he begged, tear drops falling upon an empty chest. his pleads were falling upon deaf ears, upon a cold, cold universe who felt no mercy towards him. he did this all for the devil, all of it was for him. they lied on a cruel, unforgiving earth that he molded just for them. everything was for him, ryo promised, but no one was there to listen. no one was there to care, no one was there to cradle him close and tell him what this insurmountable feeling in his heart was. it felt like death was digging it’s claws into his heart, yanking it out and squeezing all the white blood from his body. why did he feel drained, he questioned? why did ryo feel like nothing anymore?

steady tears of ichor fell from his cheeks, from his cerulean eyes and down his porcelain skin. ryo felt. ryo felt more than any human would have. “listen to me, akira - look at me.” he begged for no one but himself.

“respond to me, akira.” and ryo cried, god knew, he cried for akira. he finally did what the boy had been telling him to do all along. to love someone other than himself, to feel and care and hope for them. it was finally his realization, his last symphony on this died down tune of a melody. 

and akira didn’t cry for anyone, because no one had done the same for him when it mattered. his cheeks stayed dry and his eyes stayed open, gazing up at the stars with no recollection of how he’d gotten there. he missed miki, he missed his mother and father, he missed life. and he missed ryo, but he missed him too hard. he yearned for him for so long that he grew to despise him, underneath all that pouring love that he gave. in his young bones and his marred skin and dried lips, he held an ounce of love for the boy who took it all for him.

but ryo didn’t know that. ryo thought he died with hatred on his tongue.

so he pulled him close, pressed the other’s face into his collar and wept for him. let his tears soak the pretty boy’s hair and let the coldness of the universe wash over him. in that moment, he understood why the lord above had been so unmerciful towards him. while he did what he did out of love for one person, out of hatred for a single thing more than what he’d created, he had failed to see what the galaxy saw. it saw promise, and it saw life. ryo favored death over life, destruction over creation, and that’s where he went wrong. it came back and it flowed over the body of the one he loved most, littered it with rot and despair and unrequitedness. “don’t forget that you’ve been with me ‘till now,” he sobbed under his breath.

and he devolved, to his lowest form. when he hugged akira’s corpse close, and felt sobs wrack his spine and shake his body to its core. when he didn’t recognize his own voice anymore, when he felt the coolness of dead skin against his. he screamed out akira’s name, hoping that he heard somewhere in that foregone brain of his, but they both knew it wasn’t happening. 

“don’t leave me, akira-” ryo wailed into the cracked moon, his vision blurry and his heart decrepit. “don’t leave me, say something.”

his only response was the beginning meteor showers from above, but he refused to look away from his last will to live. he refused to feel the heat of death on his own skin, he just wanted to hold akira a little bit longer. love him a little bit longer. god sent down spheres of fire and agony, of rage and fury from above to teach the blond a lesson that he was already well acquainted with himself, but ryo didn’t care.

so he cried. he cried, and cried, and cried some more. he cried until he felt what it was like to be a crybaby.


End file.
